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> Basic AIT?
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>
> [ Dick, You have related that you were in the Army. It sounds like you
> went through our equivalent of basic and AIT. You have undergone
> significant training. That you do not recognise it ,it means it was very
> well done. Yours is an ancient and very sophisticated Army. Bill ]
>
>
>
> Howdy Sweat pea. I have never made a study of the British Army, or any
> other army. Just glossed over the surface of it perhaps. The only thing
> I know about the USA Army is what I saw in their war movies :- )) I did
> of course see many military people from all over the globe in London
> during the war, and of course the Yanks, and of which there were many
> here after they decided to join in. Unfortunately years later the
> military stopped using uniforms because of IRA attacks. My own basic
> training camp got hit by them, they went for the armoury, where I often
> did guard duty during the six weeks of basic training.
>
>
>
> But in the UK (in those days anyway) there was no combat training during
> that six weeks. It was all drilling, bullshit, and hard discipline 
> which I was not accustomed too as a wild kid on the streets of London :-
> ) Also there was no specific basic Army training; for each regiment had
> it own basic training camps, and I was in a trade regiment not a combat
> regiment. So after that first six weeks of boot polishing and washing
> dishes in the cook-house we went straight into specific trade training
> camps and of our own regiment. We did do a bit of shooting occasionally
> but that was just for the record. And given the nature of the trade I
> was in then one could hardly call it THE ARMY :- ) We were basically
> about Beach Landing Warfare, and predominantly about landing heavy
> equipment off of the landing crafts and up through the beaches. My
> section was mainly about waterproof and trials testing and also the
> recovery of equipment which had broken down in the water. But they
> employed local civilians to do most of the waterproofing work and they
> were good at it, so they hardly ever broke down. So I took up the hobby
> of scouting around for the best of local female establishment :- ) Man
> did we have fun. Well, I was only seventeen and free, so you have to
> make allowances.
>
>
>
> But joining the army would have been the last thing I ever did, yet I
> volunteered for it. But we would have had to have gone in anyway because
> there was National Service in those days and I would have finished up
> the Guards had I not volunteered and chose my own regiment. Pragmatism.
> So I just did the three years and came out. But I was glad that I did it
> for it got me out of London (which I wanted) and it taught me many
> things which I would not have learned otherwise.
>
>
>
> I have done so many different kinds of paid jobs in my time but I would
> put the Army years among the top five for many good memories of good
> times. But we were not at war during that three years. So, lucky me eh.
> Anyway, I had seen more than enough of war to last ten lifetimes. Not
> the kind of stuff that one really wants to remember. A vale of darkness
> to be sure.
>
>
>
> As for the British Army then I understand that it has been around for a
> while; longer than the Roman Army was around for; and the Nazi Army. It
> goes back a bit before the American Army too. A couple of thousand years
> anyway. But obviously not as good as the American Army, for all the
> best stuff and people come from the USA and godo's army ;- ) I
> suppose the most important lesson which I did learn from the army was
> how good it was not to be in it and thence free to live one's own
> life and doing it my way. Unfortunately however we live on a world which
> still needs army's; so the hippy-dippy flower-power types are
> wasting their time. This is a planet of war, killing, money and power.
> Unfortunately.
>
>
>
> Dick
> Yes Dick, I see you have been there. I am watching Obama take the oath of office. He takes the same oath I took twice. It was administered in side offices of obscure bases far from any pomp or ceremonies. I was in service for eighteen years. back then they would wash you out so as not to have to pay benefits. I remember it as a set of quotes from mostly sergents. "If it moves salute it, if it doesnt,paint it olive drab" . "There are three ways to do things,the right way ,the wrong way and the Army way"."There will always be wars and there will always be Armys". "You signed the papar son' . " The Army is years of boredom interspersed by moments of terror" . "He also serves who only stands and waits"."Never volunteer"

I think I obeyed and broke all these exhortations in my long term. It wasnt much money and there was little glory but it was what it said it was,service. I volunteered and nearly got killed. I went into floods and nearly dround, I went to the arctic circle and nearly frose. I went to DC and learned of the hard men at the top of the Army and of the government. The US army is so huge and so dispersed that no one could get there head around it. In those years I saw just a tiny portion of it. I too saw a reserve armory. It seemed like acres of M16`s. The IRA tried to break into our armories just as yours. They were a viscous lot and were the first terrorists fanatics with which I came in contact. Later there were Soviet special forces and black radicals.
Some of it was very murky and I cannot say exactly what happned other parts were in stark relief and still shock me today. So as the slogan says it was not a bad or good experience it was an Army experience. I was informed a few years ago that my records were destroyed in a flood at a records center. How they knew how to contact me with my records gone I do not know. I have few records and one class A uniform left. I think of it less and less and it just fades. Bill

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